Allahabad HC Says Sacking Order Vindictive, Reinstates LGBT Home Guard
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
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By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2021-02-11 07:58:53
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Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
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The Allahabad High Court has rightly ordered that a home guard dismissed from duty by his superiors because he belonged to the LGBT community and a video showing his public display of affection for his partner was uploaded on social media and went viral.
The court considered two things: one, whether it was a crime to be gay and two, whether his public act was indecent. On both counts, the court found that the sacked home guard was not in the wrong and that his superiors had dismissed him vindictively.
Relying on the decision of the Supreme Court in Navtej Singh Johar vs Union of India, the bench said that the officer making a counter-affidavit in the case has claimed that the home guard indulged in "untoward activity". The court said that this violated the observations made in the cited case. The court further said that "any display of affection among members of the LGBT community towards their partners in the public, so long as it does not amount to indecency or has the potentiality to disturb public order cannot be bogged down by majority perception."
Hence the court ordered that "The respondent No.2 i.e. the Commandant General of Home Guards, Head Quarters, UP, Lucknow is directed to take the petitioner back in service with immediate effect. The petitioner shall be entitled to all admissible dues and the honorarium shall be paid regularly as and when the same falls due."
It is alarming and sad that despite the Supreme Court having decriminalized homosexuality, self-styled guardians of morality still treat it as a sickness or deviant behavior and seek to impose their views on others. The law is clear: homosexuality is not a crime in India anymore and as long as members of the LGBT community do not commit any indecent acts in public (and that applies to every Indian citizen), they cannot be penalized for just being gay.
In the instant case, the Commandant General of Home Guards was not conversant with legal provisions and showed an overzealousness bordering on vendetta to punish someone whose sexual orientation was different from what society accepts as "straight". He abused his authority to punish a junior even though he committed no crime.
